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Mark Shuttleworth, Linux' Elon Musk, is preparing Canonical for an IPO and that is why Unity phone and desktop convergence was dropped earlier. Unity lives on as community project with Shuttleworth support.

Canonical starts IPO pathCanonical founder Mark Shuttleworth reveals the reason for recent changes with the powerhouse Ubuntu Linux company were to prepare it for an IPO.

Paraphrased:

In preparation for and IPO, Canonical will focus on their most profitable lines, Ubuntu and cloud and container-related technologies, such as Juju, LXD, and Metal-as-a-Service (MaaS). In addition, its OpenStack and Kubernetes software stacks, are growing fast on both the public and private cloud.

Canonical is to support GNOME as default desktop, "We're no longer trying to create our own interface. We'll support the existing ones -- KDE, MATE, Lxde -- but while all these desktops are great, GNOME presents the least change for users."

Ubuntu has deep and broad industry adoption. Walmart, Netflix, and eBay build their infrastructure on Ubuntu, as are such as Deutsche Telekom, AT&T, and NTT for their next-generation telecom capabilities

There is as yet no IPO timeline. First, Shuttleworth wants all parts of leaner Canonical to be profitable. Then "we will take a round of investment." After that, Canonical will go public, "will be sooner rather than later."